The making of a baseball highlight

Tampa pitcher David Price throws a fastball to Boston’s Dustin Pedroia, who raps a ground ball past the pitcher’s mound. Shortstop Yunel Escobar races to his left, but it looks like a single to center field.

“I immediately thought,” Price says, “that I was going to have first and third with no outs.”

In center field, Desmond Jennings has a different view of Escobar.

“I thought he was going to catch it,” he says. “I didn’t think he had a chance at second. I thought he was going to get it, spin and throw to first.”

Third baseman Evan Longoria watches the play develop.

“Just one of those moments,” he says, “where you don’t expect it to happen, and when it does, you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty unbelievable what just happened.’ ”

Escobar ran down the grounder, speared the ball with his glove and flipped it behind his back to second base.

All in an instant. All without using his bare hand. All in a fluid motion that made the play seem not only inspired but also inevitable.

“It was all reaction,” says Escobar, speaking through a Spanish interpreter. “There was no other way to make the play.”

Second baseman Ben Zobrist, standing at the bag, was ready for a throw, but not that throw.

“I was as surprised as anybody,” he says. “If it hadn’t been right at me, I probably wouldn’t have caught it, because I was so surprised. That’s frankly why I caught it bare-handed. I was just like, ‘Oh! There it is!’ ”

Other major league shortstops have made that kind of glove play, even behind the back, but not with such fluid economy. Escobar says he never practiced that move, exactly, but he does mess around with making different catches and tosses.

“I like to put on a show,” he says. “That’s the fun of me playing the game.”

Several Rays remember being surprised by the play. The hard grounder disappeared and then reappeared as an easy lob to second base.

Jennings: “When I saw him flip it like that, and I saw the ball floating in air in the right direction, I’m like, ‘Wow.’ ”

Price: “As soon as I saw the ball in the air, I knew we were definitely going to get the guy at second, and then when Zo bare-handed it, threw it on a line to first, we had the double play.”

Here’s what happened:

Zobrist caught the ball in his right hand, stepped on second base and threw to first base for the second out.

All in an instant. All without using his glove, in a way that made the play seem not only inspired but inevitable.

“I just grabbed and threw it, because that’s what you do at second base,” he says. “You’ve just got to get it, get rid of it, make it on line as best you can, and get out of the way of the runner.”

Zobrist had never bare-handed a double-play toss before.

“I was looking for the ball to come out one side, and it came out of the other side,” he says. “And I just found it to be right at my face, right at my eye level, so I was able to grab it.”

Rays manager Joe Maddon thought the double play turn was both flashy and necessary.

“If Yuni goes after that ball and attempts to do it in the traditional Shortstop 101 mode, there’s no way he completes the play,” he says. “If Zobrist attempts to catch it with his glove in traditional double play mode, that doesn’t get it done.”

The entire play — among the thousands of outs and nearly 400 double plays the Rays recorded last year — took less than 5 seconds. But it left an impression. Fans remember it. Players still appreciate it.

Longoria: “As an infielder, you understand how difficult that play is. When you play baseball, you realize how tough it is to actually make a play like that, and complete it.

Price: “I’ve seen some really good defensive plays, but that was two outs. That was awesome. Definitely the best play I’ve ever had made for me.”

On the Fox Sports network, there was the Tampa Bay announcing team of Dewayne Staats and Brian Anderson. They called the play in real time, with crowd noise rising in the background.

Staats: “Ground ball. Escobar with the glove flip. Bare-handed reception and throw by Zobrist and the Rays get the double play. How about that all the way around? Stamp it with a star and then some.”

Anderson: “Wow. Wow. Escobar going up the middle, you’ve got to be kidding me. Behind the back, and then how about Zobrist almost anticipating it and then the bare hand? Beautifully done. Flawless.”

Staats: “One more time. You’re not going to see that every day. Outstanding by the Rays middle infielders, Escobar and Zobrist.”

Anderson: “We talked about it last night, another Rays pitcher turning around to acknowledge the defense behind them. These guys can flat out flash the leather.”

Marc Topkin, Rays beat writer for the Tampa Bay Times, can list more than a dozen dramatic hits and diving catches over the years. The behind-the-back double play was different.

“What made the Yunel play so fascinating to me was figuring out how he did it,” Topkin says. “I can remember going back to the hotel and going through the various ESPN channels looking for the highlights.

“It was such a good play that I wrote about it for two days.”

The double play helped Tampa Bay win the game, 5-1, and move within half a game of Boston in the American League East. The Rays barely qualified for a wild-card spot in the playoffs at the end of the year, so every play and every win mattered.

The video clip began making the rounds of highlight shows and best-play compilations. It appeared on YouTube and MajorLeagueBaseball.com.

Todd Kalas, the feature guy on the Rays broadcast team, enjoyed the contrast between Escobar at shortstop and Zobrist at second base.

“Yunel, you never now, he has the style,” he says. “And Zobrist, he’s the textbook, all about the fundamentals.”

Kalas is glad the play happened during a pennant race and at Fenway Park, one of the temples of baseball.

“You can hear the gasps and murmurs of people talking about the play in the stands,” he says. “The Red Sox fans appreciate quality baseball as much as any in the country.”

After the double play, Escobar tries to keep a straight face, but he has to smile when he glove-fives Zobrist.

Price, meanwhile, pounds his glove and shouts at his fielders.

Longoria had to keep himself from celebrating too much.

“I usually try to echo what the thoughts of the pitcher are, but you don’t want to overdo it, you don’t want to show up the other team,” he says. “I know David is very emotional, he wears his heart on his sleeve, and he has a tendency to get me fired up in that situation.”

After getting their final out of the inning, the Rays headed into their dugout to celebrate the double play.

The Rays double play lives on in video, the Internet and in the memories of fans and players.

Price never tires of it.

“The way we got him at first, I saw the breakdown of it, maybe on the (ESPN) ‘Sport Science’ show, and everything we did, we couldn’t have changed anything,” he says. “The way it happened was as fast as possible. Yunel flipping it from his glove and Zo bare-handing it, and it all times out to get the runner by a half-step or one rotation of the ball.”

When Maddon is asked about the double play, months later, he summons a reference to the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals.

“I never saw the Gashouse Gang play,” he says with a smile, “but I am certain that the boys back in the ’30s did a lot of that stuff before and during the game. If it’s within your ability, and you’ve worked on it, and it’s your only chance, why not try it?”

Fans still mention the play to Zobrist.

“They don’t ask me anything,” he says. “They just say, ‘Oh, I really liked that double play last year. That was awesome.’ Which is when I say, ‘That was Yunel. He made the play. I just happened to be standing at second base.’ ”

Price has watched the highlight dozens of times, if not more.

“Hoo — I had it on my phone, a GIF or whatever, a six-second thing,” he says. “And I sent it to Yuni, so he had it for ahwile. This off-season, I was cleaning out all the Internet tabs on my iPhone and it was still on there, and I started watching it.”

Last modified: March 18, 2014
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